“I would much rather be doing work,” welfare recipients told Lisa Conyers in numerous interviews. “And it didn’t matter what kind of work, any kind of work than having to be on these [welfare] programs.” Conyers visited homeless tent cities, soup kitchens and other spots frequented by those living in poverty to hear the stories of those living on welfare. Those stories can be read in “The Human Cost of Welfare: How the System Hurts the People It’s Supposed to Help,” which Conyers co-authored with Phil Harvey. Both Conyers and Harvey work for the DKT Liberty Project.
Nearly $1 trillion is spent at all levels of government on anti-poverty programs a year. Roughly 70 percent of that spending comes from the federal government. But how can we be sure that taxpayer funding for welfare programs actually helps those in poverty, especially when the poverty rate (14.8 percent) has hardly budged in the past half-century?
